(Originally Posted by Nina Slingsby on LinkedIn and copied here)

The sales section of this year’s presentations is now well under way and having so far covered who and how to target, along with targeting specific markets in June we will cover more in-depth sales techniques.

We will be joined by Marian Hubble who will focus on Success in Business with NLP. This will include steps to maximising sales, overcoming challenges and being the best you can.

Barry Mapp will follow with a presentation on “Mind Mapping in the Sales Process”.

Mind Mapping has been described as the Swiss Army Knife for the Brain because it is so useful for many different brain activities and tasks. In this session Barry outlines what Mind Mapping is (and it isn’t “spider diagrams”!) and then shares examples of the usefulness of the technique in assisting the Sales Process.

We meet at 12pm for a light lunch and networking followed by our speakers and your chance to ask questions and find out how to increase sales in your business. Event charge of £10 payable on the day but please call Karen on 0121 631 3535 or email sm_gc-birmingham@rank.com to confirm your attendance to this forum and feel free to invite along friends and colleagues to this popular networking event.

Over 18’s only and ID required (passport or driving licence) if this is your first visit to the Casino.

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Both New Psychology and New Science are underlying themes in this Superblog. Let’s just take a first brief look at what we mean by the terms New Psychology and Old Psychology and next time we’ll look at “New Science”.

The following is adapted from a Paper presented by Barry Mapp in 1994 at the ERIK Network European Conference “Regional Successes in Creating and Connecting Companies – European Union Perspectives”

Psychology has always been important in Business

In Business, psychology (i.e. our understanding of, or beliefs about, human behaviour) has always been an important factor in “how we do things around here”. Psychology thus underpins the workings of both the old and new style company paradigms.

The Psychology of Compliant Companies is “Old Psychology” (behaviour that is predicted primarily from studies on starving animals or unhappy or sick human beings).

The Psychology that underpins successful Creation Companies is “New Psychology” where people behaviour is predicted from the studies of animals that were happy and cared for, or from research on human beings that are living happy and fulfilled lives.

Note that nearly all textbook psychology is “Old Psychology” – so you won’t find much about new psychology from standard psychology books.

It is interesting to note that most of our business advisory groups (like Business Link in the UK) still promote business systems based on old psychology and indeed their own organisational structures and processes are rooted in old psychology.

Most Government strategy around influencing business and services is based on old psychology and even most business consultants (including those who profess to be thinking outside the box) are often using “old psychology” techniques and theories.

The following table shows some of the fundamental differences between Old Psychology and New Psychology approaches.

Old Psychology Principles (this includes):

• (extensive use of) Extrinsic Motivators (Carrot and Stick)
• People Treated like children (heavy on rules and regulations)
• External Targets set from above (nearly all are arbitrary!)
• Blame culture. Whose fault?  Whose head must roll?
• Visible are many of the Seven Deadly Diseases of Management

The New Psychologies embrace ideas like those of Glasser (Choice Theory), Kelly (Constructive Alternativism) and Griffin and Tyrell (Human Givens approach). New Psychology is congruent with Kohn’s research on Co-operation and Motivation, with Dweck’s research on “Self-Theories” and with Deming’s ideas on the transformation of management. (More about each of these Psychologies in later blogs)

Coming Next: New Science, New Thinking and Creation Companies

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A Creation Company can be thought of as a place (business) where the work systems, work processes, work culture, work management and work leadership are aligned with people and how people work best.

Where such alignment occurs this can lead to extraordinary results.

When the systems do not get in the way of the work, human spirit and human joy and passion unfold.

When alignment happens between people and systems, the work can “flow”, unimpeded by artificial constraints, boundaries, controls or hierarchy.

When the work is aligned with how people like to work, then every person in the business is able to perform at their very best, such that everyone has the opportunity to produce extraordinary results.

When there is such alignment, individuals have a sense of control or influence over the work and a sense of responsible for their own work

The Fundamental Principles for creating a Creation Company

Tom McGehee says there are three fundamental principles for a Creation Company (and ANY company can generate the excitement, energy, confidence, and audacity of the “whoosh” of a Creation Company by subscribing to these fundamental principles):

1)     A  leadership style free from command-and-control principles

2)     A corporate culture that values individual expression and collaborative work

3)     An understanding that success means creating the new not replicating the old

From my personal experience, I would also add two additional principles required for (long-term) Creation Company performance (this makes it five principles in all) and these will be discussed in the next blog

Coming next:  Five Working Principles of Creation Companies

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(Adapted from a Paper presented by Barry Mapp in 1994 at the ERIK Network European Conference “Regional Successes in Creating and Connecting Companies – European Union Perspectives”)

Let’s take a preliminary look at the differences between a “Compliance Company” and a “Creation Company”.  These are terms that I like, that were first penned by Tom McGehee in his book Whoosh.

Today a key business challenge is to recognise and realise the full potential of each organisation. However when we continue to lead and manage our organisations in the same way as we have always done, we are going to get what we have always got. The call to lead and manage in a totally different way – to transform “western management”- was first issued by W.Edwards Deming. Many have cherry-picked from Deming’s ideas but few have attempted to transform management along the lines that he proposed.

Most organisations continue to be run in “the old ways” based on “old psychology”,“old science” and “old management” principles (each of these terms will be explored more fully in later blogs). As Russell Ackoff pointed out a few years ago, most business schools are part of the problem because they still teach “old way” approaches.  However more and more iconoclasts of our era, from different fields and domains, are backing the need to transform management thinking. Tom McGehee is one of many calling for a change in our thinking. He calls the transformed organisation a  “Creation Company” and the old-style organisation a “Compliance Company” – terms that I will use also.

Compliance Companies, whether they realise this or not, erect barriers to change and innovation by insisting on control of (1)information, (2)resources and (3)decision making, in order to preserve the status quo. In such companies (which remain the vast majority) people have never been trusted to supervise themselves and inspect their own work. People are never able to do their best efforts because the management systems get in the way.

Coming Next: So what makes a “Creation Company”?

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(adapted from an article “The Science of Healing and the Healing of Science” published in Resource Magazine September 2005, Author: Barry Mapp)  Continuing to set the scene on Science and Healing

We don’t realise how much existing theories and beliefs prevent us from seeing new things clearly.

A doctor who can suspend existing judgement about healers long enough to search the world’s literature will find plenty of published material (but not in the Lancet or the British Medical Journal) demonstrating that healing has “medical” effects worthy of further investigation.

Equally “healers” are often unaware how their own theories and beliefs can prevent them from seeing things clearly and they too must be prepared to change their pet theories if they want  to be accepted by the scientific community .

So scientists and healers suffer from the same problem. They both use outdated concepts or “out-of-context” theories to explain how things happen. Healers are often using theories and explanations which go back thousands of years, whilst openly criticising the scientists who cling to Newton’s ideas that are much more recent.

We need a pragmatic view of theory. No explanation or model is ever complete or “true” (see here). What is important therefore, is not to argue over who or what is “right”, but to find explanations or metaphors that are useful, that most people can accept, and that allows predictions to be made and theory to be tested.

For example, some healers say that the cause of illness is “evil spirits”. A few hundred years ago or more this may have been a reasonable theory. However today this metaphor is outdated.

Other healers invoke their religion, reincarnation, or their “spirit guides” as integral to their healing but none of these are essential to what they do. Such theories simply provide a stream of potential red herrings (and an uncomfortable feeling) for the scientist. If healers want their form of healing to become mainstream, and thus part of everyday medical practice, they have to conceive explanations that are aligned with present day context and knowledge (even if some of that present day knowledge is “wrong”).

As Newton’s Thinking is still predominant in science, the healer must speak with metaphors that the scientist understands (rather than jumping on the Quantum Theory bandwagon as most are doing – a bandwagon that has yet to starting rolling in the corridors of power). In a later blog I will be sharing a Newtonian metaphor for healing.

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(adapted from an article “The Science of Healing and the Healing of Science” published in Resource Magazine September 2005, Author: Barry Mapp)

Most people would agree that science has rarely taken healing and healers seriously. Therefore science has never properly researched or investigated the phenomena that may be at work.

Science therefore has a major “blind-spot” in its knowledge base, possibly ignorant of a whole range of naturally occurring subtle phenomena that happen within and between living things. Coincidently, science appears “stuck” between two apparently conflicting paradigms.

On the one hand the science writers tell us how Quantum Ideas have long replaced Newtonian Thinking. On the other hand, at the cultural and grass roots level of scientific research and practice (particularly the biological sciences), we see that this “old” paradigm is still predominant.

Little has changed since the 1700’s when healers were often labelled as witches or charlatans. At the start of the 21^st century we appear a little more accepting of healing though not because of scientific understanding or study, but rather through positive patient experiences and “word of mouth” testimonial.

So today we can see healers at work in Hospice or Cancer Care Units, but rarely in medical and surgical wards, where the healers could potentially save the NHS millions, if not billions, of pounds a year.

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(taken from an article “The Science of Healing and the Healing of Science” published in Resource Magazine September 2005, Author: Barry Mapp)

Science today is in need of healing and healing is in need of science.

Without the “appliance of science” to the modality called (hands-on) healing, then ‘treatments’ like Reiki will continue to remain marginalised at the periphery of health care in Hospice and Cancer Units.

Equally without the healing (making whole) of science, so much profound knowledge that could be useful to mankind, will remain hidden, whilst the number of meaningless, costly, and environmentally unfriendly “scientific” ventures continue to escalate. When science eventually uncovers the knowledge within the healing domain, it will be a very humbling experience for many. The very nature of science may change forever.

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